30 January 2018

I have just ...

... updated my piece from early today on the 'Revision' of the Catechism. I do hope readers took the trouble to penetrate my frothy beginning, and got the point of my very considerable anxiety.

If I were one of the plotters, my plan of action would be to:

(1) get the section in the CCC on Capital Punishment changed. Not many people would bother very much about this, because Capital Punishment is already abolished in most countries, where it is regarded as a self-evident barbarism. But a change in this part of the text would serve to establish firmly the principle that doctrine in the Catechismcan be changed (the change made here by S John Paul II affected prudential, not doctrinal,considerations).

(2) get Communion for 'remarried divorcees' into the text. The ground for that has already been prepared by those tedious and corrupted 'synods' and by Amoris Laetitia and the papal back-up given to one interpretation of that lamentable document.

(3) make a combined onslaught upon Humanae vitae and the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. The link between those two parts of the Magisterium is, of course, that they both uphold a radical link between sexuality and procreation.

As I have said before, what I find most inexplicable about the current attacks upon the Church's immemorially ancient teaching on sex is the implication that sexual temptation and sexual sins are part of a new situation facing the Church, calling therefore for new thinking.As if the previous millennia had known nothing at all about sexual temptation ... as if (according to the old English joke) sexual intercourse really was invented in the 1960s by the Beatles.

10 comments:

In the beginning, the Serpent separated Man from God by undermining man and woman's relationship. In these latter days, he is up to his old tricks: separating Man from God by undermining man and woman's relationship, this time stealthily within the Church.

CCC 2263 & 2267 sin against the constant teaching of the church by omission & then drawing conclusions flatly contrary to it... and it is now the new "Magisterium". A good exemplar for PF's cronies to follow & a reason to be suspicious of the hypostatised 20th C "Magisterium" as a substitute for the Bible & the Fathers.

Pater dignissime, you must immediately pray to St. Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, begging protection from the internet demons. Now your home page diplays only today's post, with the strange intrusion, and nothing else.

This is certainly something to think about for those who condemn the "self-evident barbarism" of capital punishment, a practice that was self-evidently just for previous generations, at least in the case of serious crimes. Failure to pay more than lip service to the justice of capital punishment paves the way for the path Fr. Hunwicke lays out. In a blasphemous perversion, it seems that the philosophy of the "Seamless Garment" turns out to be a sort of Shirt of Nessus.

I have not yet read Feser & Bessette's "By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed" but it seems to be inordinately timely. As a review in one Catholic paper (http://bit.ly/2EqSW9x) put it:

“By saving innocent lives, by affirming the sacredness of the lives of murder victims, and by treating murderers as morally accountable creatures who deserve punishment proportional to their crimes, the death penalty plays a vital role in upholding human dignity and in promoting a culture of life,” it stated. If your education leads you to question or challenge that assertion (as I would have a few weeks ago), I urge you to study this book. You may well find yourself agreeing with Father Gerald Murray, the well-known canon lawyer, frequent EWTN guest, and regular contributor to “The Catholic Thing”: The book “conclusively show(s) that in Catholic doctrine the death penalty is a moral, legitimate and appropriate punishment for certain heinous crimes.”

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.